Post mortems are circulating even though there is still hope that key creditor St George Bank, which effectively put the stockbroker into administration on May 18, might help land a funding deal from George Wang's AIMS Financial Group.

BBY’s decision to underwrite a $A25 million of convertible notes for Australia-listed South African thermal coal hopeful Firestone in September 2009 was considered particularly fateful with the benefit of hindsight.

Valued at 4c per share at the time, the changing fortunes in the coal market along with Firestone’s legal battles and financing challenges have seen their value plummet with Firestone shares last trading at half a cent each.

“At April 30 a subsidiary of the broker - BBY Nominees - was the holder of the convertible notes, which now had a face value of $22.145 million but in reality are probably worth very little, according to sources, because of Firestone's parlous financial position,” Fairfax Media reported on Friday.

“As of this week, BBY Nominees is also the owner of $2.9 million in shares and 300 million options in Firestone Energy, a company that in April was suspended from trading due to its financial issues. BBY posted a $2.6 million loss over the year to June 2014, due in part to a $3.4 million provision.”

However, BBY Nominees is also rumoured to have made costly plays on medical marijuana company Phytotech, the Swiss franc’s currency movements and on Australian’s big banking stocks.

"It was not just Firestone that BBY took bets on,” a former senior insider said.

“There were a lot of terrible bets. But there were also a lot of great bets."